Positive Organizational Behavior &

Psychological Capital:
Psychological Capital &
Other Positive Constructs
Presented by:

Raymond Francis T. Alvarez

MPA 210 1Y3-3

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 Psychological Capital (PsyCap)
• Psychological Capital –
 a higher-order core construct, as defined Luthans and colleagues
 Uses positive psychology and Positive Organizational Behavior (POB)
 Further, uses the four criteria-meeting psychological resources of efficacy,
optimism, hope and resiliency
 Goes beyond economic, social and human capital
 Individual’s positive psychological state of development characterized by:
 confidence to take on and put necessary effort to succeed
 positive attribution about succeeding
 persevering towards goals and redirecting in order to succeed
 Sustaining and bouncing back even beyond to
attain success

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 Psychological Capital (PsyCap)
• Luthans and colleagues, in 2014, intended to label the four resources as
“psychological capital”
 idea that there is considerable attention in workplace research being
given to economic, social, human and even intellectual capital

• Csikszentmihalyi had already mentioned the terms previously in an

unpublished book

• A search via google revealed these terms were found in an economics article
in 1997

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 Psychological Capital (PsyCap)
• Most important point about POB and PsyCap
 the role that research plays, i.e., an evidence-based approach
 first major research project was to validate a measure called the PsyCap
Questionnaire (or PCQ), and provide empirical evidence that PsyCap was
a second-order core construct accounting for more variance in employee
performance and satisfaction than each of the four individual positive
constructs that make it up

• PsyCap was relatively less stable over time than personality traits, but not as
unstable as positive emotions, thus providing empirical evidence for
PsyCap meeting the state-like criterion.

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 Psychological Capital (PsyCap)
• Evidence-based facets of PsyCap
 Found to be positively related to desired organizational citizenship
behaviors and negatively to undesired organization cynicism, intentions
to quit and counterproductive workplace behaviors

 Predicted unique variance in attitudes and behaviors over and above the
demographics, core self-evaluation traits, and person-organization and
person-job fit

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 Psychological Capital (PsyCap)
• Evidence-based facets of PsyCap
 Recent studies show PsyCap having implications on combating stress;
helps facilitate positive organizational change; mediate relationship
between supportive organizational climate and employee performance
and is related to employee creativity.

 Another study shows the leader’s level of PsyCap impacted followers’

perceived trust and evaluations of leadership effectiveness

 Same study found another positive relationship, this time

between the leader’s PsyCap level and the followers’
level and performance

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 Psychological Capital (PsyCap) Development
• PsyCap is statelike and is open to development – can be developed in short
training interventions
 PsyCap training causes performance to improve

• Results of research on PsyCap has so far seemed to indicate a bright future

for its role in positive organizational behavior
 Can also be used as an effective evidence-based approach to leadership
and employee development
 A work team’s collective PsyCap is related to their citizenship behavior
and performance
 Need to recognize other positive constructs,
e.g., subjective well-being & emotional intelligence

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 Other Positive Constructs
• Aside from those mentioned earlier, i.e., confidence, optimism, hope and
resiliency, other traits can still be included under PsyCap:
 Happiness or Subjective Well-Being
 Broader term than happiness
 People’s affective and cognitive evaluations of their lives
 Deals with how people emotionally interpret what happens in their
lives
1. Happiness is a process, not a place
2. There is an optimal level of happiness
3. Happiness is related to health, relationship and effectiveness at
work

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 Other Positive Constructs
• Aside from those mentioned earlier, i.e., confidence, optimism, hope and
resiliency, other traits can still be included under PsyCap:
 Emotional Intelligence (EI)
 Emotion – how a person feels about something
 Predates the emergence of POB
 Types of Emotions
• Love/affection/joy
• Surprise
• Fear
• Sadness
• Anger
• Disgust
• Shame
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 Other Positive Constructs
• Aside from those mentioned earlier, i.e., confidence, optimism, hope and
resiliency, other traits can still be included under PsyCap:
 Emotion on a continuum
 Happiness – Surprise – Fear – Sadness – Anger - Disgust
 The closer emotions are related to one another, the more difficult it is
for others to distinguish the facial expressions of positive and negative
emotions

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 Other Positive Constructs
• Role of Intelligence:
 Intelligence has played a major role in psychology, but NOT in
organizational behavior
 Nature vs Nurture Intelligence
 Nature/biological: effects of researches on genetic and
neuroscience has an effect on the intelligence of people
 Nurture/developmental: intelligence can be affected by the
different levels of external factors, such as advertisements,
perceptions, and others

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 Other Positive Constructs
• Role of Intelligence:
 Intelligence has played a major role in psychology, but NOT in
organizational behavior
 Recognition of Multiple Intelligence
 Intelligence must be measurable, valued by the culture, and
should be a strength when challenged

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 Other Positive Constructs
• Intelligence as Cognitive Mental Ability
 Ability refers to aptitudes and learned capabilities needed to successfully
accomplish a task
 Vast majority of jobs today are concerned more with cognitive abilities
 There is a considerable research evidence that general mental ability
(GMA) tests are a good personnel selection and job training program
predictor of overall job performance

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 Other Positive Constructs
• Intelligence as Cognitive Mental Ability
 Ability refers to aptitudes and learned capabilities needed to successfully
accomplish a task
 Vast majority of jobs today are concerned more with cognitive abilities
 There is a considerable research evidence that general mental ability
(GMA) tests are a good personnel selection and job training program
predictor of overall job performance

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 Summary
• Chapter discussed the Positive Organizational Behavior (POB) and
Psychological Capacity (PsyCap)
• Based on recent positive psychology movement, i.e., looking for strengths
and what is right
• Specific criteria must be met to be included in the POB: based on theory and
research, valid measures, statelike and open to development, and managed
for performance improvement
• POB criteria discussed are: self-efficacy, optimism, hope and resilience
• When combined, there is theory and research showing that it is a higher-
order, core construct

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END OF PRESENTATION.

THANK YOU!

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